15 Years of Candlelight

Anyone that knows me, knows that Disneyland is a big part of my life. This is for a few different reasons. First, who doesn't love Disney? Second, I have the Peter Pan Syndrome so I love being somewhere that makes me feel like a kid every time I'm there. Third, I was born in Anaheim... which is where Disneyland is located, which pretty much makes me a Disney baby. Fourth, my sisters attended Disney Elementary school. True story. Fifth, We had Disney wallpaper in our play room in our Anaheim house. Sixth, one of the main reasons is because since I was a freshman in high school, I have attended Disneyland twice a year for free, one of those times each year being at Christmas to perform in Candlelight. Even when I moved to Utah, I have still continued to come down every year for it. Obviously I love it. It holds a special place in my heart. The Christmas season doesn't feel the same without it!

Yesterday was my 15th year performing in Disneyland's Candlelight Choir. I like to say that I am a seasonal cast member. Sounds pretty legit right? They did things a little different this year, so my mom and I were really hesitant about going this year. We had to see what changed though... so we committed. Biggest changes were that they are performing everyday for the first 20 days in December now instead of just the first weekend of December. Before, I could always count on when it was.... now we don't know what day we will be asked to perform on. This year, it was the 16th. It makes it a lot harder to travel down that late in December. So we will see in future years if we will still go if it is so late in the month. The second big change is that we went from an 1,000 voice choir to a 600 voice choir. Everything was still set up the same.... just a lot less of us. Still a lot though. For 5 years we performed in the Fantasy Land theater as a 500 voice choir... so nothing too new there. Another change was that we didn't process down main street as far as we normally do. We didn't have to bring our own robe this year... which was really nice and we also only had one hour of rehearsal and it wasn't with the narrator or the orchestra... so we didn't get a really good practice in. That and we are singing less and less of Candlelight Carol. I think those were all the changes.

With all of those changes, was it worth doing again? Yes. Will I go again next year? Quite possibly, yes. The biggest fear of making the trip down there and spending the time getting ready and practicing behind the scenes at Disneyland is ... bad weather. We were having it on Sunday. It was very much rainy. Out of the 15 years that I have gone, I have only not been able to perform once because it was rained out. The one year our choir didn't make it (a couple of years ago) it was rained out. So it doesn't happen often, but it is a possibility. As my mom and I drove down to Disneyland we were worried it wasn't going to happen. They won't tell us if we are going to perform or not until right before you are supposed to go on... until then you act like you are going to perform. Luck was on our side and it was just barely dry enough (even with a little drizzle in the air) that they let us perform both shows. SO glad.  *I hardly took any pictures this year... weird, I know. This is a picture I had my mom snap right before we turned our robes and candles in.

Patricia Heaton was the narrator. She was okay. The show was great. After the second show was over, my mom and I went back into the park and we went on Indiana Jones (my favorite that happened to be closed when I was there with my roommates) and then we caught the end of Fantasmic (which is my favorite show) and then we got to see the amazing fireworks show. After that we went on Space Mountain and then headed to Aunt Valerie's house for the night.

So glad that I went. It truly is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. I love it. Thank you Walt Disney for putting in your will that Candlelight would go on forever. It sure has blessed my life.